5 minute freewrite 2528 prompt beetle oil

beetle oil This is my post for #freewriters 2528 prompt hosted by @mariannewest

Have you ever wondered who the first person was to try eating something that had never been eaten before? Think about it, take an oyster, you pick up this sharp edged rock, bust it open and see this thing that looks and feels like a huge gubber, you know that fleam you cough up when sick. A clam is not as bad but, still?

Tomatoes have an interesting history. In 700AD the Aztecs were the first to eat tomatoes. Americans did not eat them until the 1800s. They were thought to be poisonous because they are in the nightshade family of plants, and they have some poisonous species and their stems and leaves smelled bad.

And then there is a bug called an oil beetle, now this bug will release oil that you do not want to touch your skin, so what did they do 3,000 years ago? They gave this beetle oil to pregnant women to help start contractions.

I wonder how it was given because this is what Google says will happen if you get this beetle oil on your skin. This oil contains cantharidin, a toxic chemical that can cause painful blisters and skin reactions if it comes into contact with human skin. Cantharidin can also be lethal if ingested.

I know this woman did not drink it in her coffee/tea. So how did they give it to her and again, who was the first woman who said she would try it, maybe it was a long labor and making no progress she screamed, just give me anything.

It was used by the ancient Egyptians more than 3000 years ago to induce contractions during childbirth and the ancient Greeks prized it variously as an aphrodisiac, healing salve, and poison for assassinations or executions (presumably, at very different doses). For their diverse uses and fascinating ecology, oil beetles were named the 2020 insect of the year by an entomological society in Europe. copied from https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/oil-beetles/

photo is mine